Shifting to Circular Manufacturing in the Global South: Challenges and Pathways

As the Global South shifts towards increased manufacturing, the negative effects on climate change and environmental pollution raise serious concerns. These global effects are increasingly felt locally, as reflected in health surveys throughout the Global South. The world cannot afford to wait for a natural development process to take place in which rising incomes might curb pollution. This article examines the challenges of reforming manufacturing in the Global South towards more sustainable practices. It also focuses on the lessons of the Sustainable Manufacturing and Environmental Pollution Program (SMEP) which has funded a series of environmental improvement projects across sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia aimed at reducing pollution in the manufacturing process. The lessons learned from these projects include the need to improve the tracking of the negative effects of the environmental damages caused by manufacturing and analyze the manufacturing supply chain processes to better identify potential points of intervention; as well as the need for more external financial and technical resources to expand these projects.